effects on

agriculture

beekeeping

The greater wax moth,
Galleria mellonella, is a lepidopterous insect that, in its larval stage, destroys combs. It does not attack adult bees but may begin destruction of combs of a weak colony long before the bees are gone. It can also destroy stored combs of honey. When the larvae are ready to pupate, they often eat out a place to spin their cocoons in the soft wood of the beehive,...

forestry

...on or around trees. Many of these are beneficial, and even the destructive ones are usually held in check by their natural enemies or an unfavourable environment. The normal population levels of pest organisms result in limited reduction in tree growth or the total destruction of only a small number of trees in the forest. The losses are generally accepted by foresters as unavoidable and are...

fruit farming

In many fruit enterprises,
pest control is the most expensive and time-consuming growing practice. Where the concentration of fruit farms in an area warrants it, individual efforts are complemented by legislative measures including quarantine regulations to force removal of pest-laden, unattended orchards. Sometimes the most economical control procedure is biological in nature. There is...

gardening

Damage to plants is most often caused by pests such as insects, mites, eelworms, and other small creatures but may also be caused by mammals such as deer, rabbits, and mice. Damage by disease is that caused by fungi, bacteria, and viruses.

sugarcane

Sugarcane is attacked and damaged by various insect pests that bore into and feed on the different parts of the plant. Control measures include biological control by parasites or predators, chemical control by insecticides, and the introduction of resistant cane varieties.

tea

The tea plant is subject to attack from at least 150 insect species and 380 fungus diseases. In northeast India, where 125 pests and 190 fungi have been detected, losses from pests and diseases have been estimated at 67 million pounds (30 million kg) of tea per annum. More than 100 pests and 40 diseases occur in the tea fields of Japan. Sri Lanka, where estates are close together or contiguous,...

tobacco

Common diseases and pests are black root rot, Fusarium wilt, tobacco mosaic virus (TMV), bacterial leaf spot, downy mildew, black shank, broomrape, and witchweed. These may be controlled by sanitation, crop rotation, the use of fungicide and herbicide sprays and fumigants, and breeding of disease-resistant strains. Some resistant varieties of tobacco have been produced by blending desired...

vegetable farming

The production of satisfactory crops requires rigorous disease- and insect-control measures. Crop yield may be lowered by disease or insect attack, and when plants are attacked at an early stage of growth the entire crop may be lost. Reduction in the quality of vegetable crops may also be caused by diseases and insects. Grades and standards for market vegetables usually specify strict limits on...

human populations

malaria

...insecticide such as diethyl toluamide. Travelers should also take antimalarial drugs prophylactically, though none is completely effective against the parasites. The most comprehensive method of prevention is to eliminate the breeding places of
Anopheles mosquitoes by draining and filling marshes, swamps, stagnant pools, and other large or small bodies of standing freshwater....

pappataci fever

Sand flies breed in vegetation within a few hundred feet of human habitations. However, these breeding places are difficult to discover, rendering larvicidal control impractical. The bloodsucking females feed only from sunset to sunrise and only at ground level, so that sleeping above the ground floor provides moderately good protection. Ordinary mosquito netting and screening are useless,...

yellow fever

In the early stages of yellow fever, its symptoms are similar to those of other tropical fevers such as malaria, leptospirosis, or dengue. Diagnosis is usually established by blood tests showing the presence of antibodies to the virus and by the patient’s history of having been in an area where the disease is endemic. Treatment is supportive and is designed to correct the acid–base...

major references

Wherever agriculture has been practiced, pests have attacked, destroying part or even all of the crop. In modern usage, the term
pest includes animals (mostly insects), fungi, plants, bacteria, and viruses. Human efforts to control pests have a long history. Even in Neolithic times (about 7000
bp), farmers practiced a crude form of biological
pest control involving the more or less...

...has led to residues in sugar beets grown in the same soil the following year, for which there are no tolerances. Fish have been killed in farm ponds because of drainage of insecticide pollutants. Use of heptachlor (no longer recommended) to control alfalfa weevil led to soil contamination and uptake by hay; dairy cows that ate the hay produced milk containing heptachlor.

slug control

...from which the mating pair of slugs are able to suspend themselves. If irritated, slugs can secrete copious quantities of slime. This reaction is the basis for one of the most effective methods of controlling slugs: spreading enough ashes in slug-infested areas causes exhaustion and death of the animals through the overproduction of slime.

use of

entomological study

The body of knowledge gleaned from the study of insects has enabled modern economic entomologists to develop a wide range of methods for controlling insect pests. Some insects are perceived as threats to humans, both as agents of crop destruction and as disseminators of disease. Methods of integrating pest management, which combine chemical, biological, cultural, and sanitation strategies, have...

spiders

All spiders are predators. Because of their abundance, they are the most important predators of insects. Spiders have been used to control insects in apple orchards in Israel and rice fields in China. Large numbers of spiders have also been observed feeding on insects in South American rice fields and in fields of various North American crops. Modern pest-management strategies emphasize the use...

tachinid flies

Tachinids are of great importance in the control of destructive insects, particularly caterpillars and beetle larvae. For this reason several species have been used in the biological control of pests. For example, the sugarcane beetle borer population in Hawaii has been reduced by the tachinid
Ceromasia sphenophori from New Guinea; the coconut moth in Fiji has been controlled by the...

reptiles

...some temperate and many tropical areas, although this impact is often overlooked because their contribution is entirely local. A monetary value is often not assigned to any vertebrate that provides
pest control. Nonetheless, many lizards control insect pests in homes and gardens; snakes are major predators of rodents, and the importance of rodent control has been demonstrated repeatedly when...

resistant plant species

Another way of increasing yield is to develop varieties resistant to diseases and insects. In many cases the development of resistant varieties has been the only practical method of
pest control. Perhaps the most important feature of resistant varieties is the stabilizing effect they have on production and hence on steady food supplies. Varieties tolerant to drought, heat, or cold provide the...

ultrasonics

...have the ability to hear sounds in the human ultrasonic frequency range. A presumed sensitivity of roaches and rodents to frequencies in the 40 kilohertz region has led to the manufacture of “
pest controllers” that emit loud sounds in that frequency range to drive the pests away, but they do not appear to work as advertised.